Harmony Public Schools Selected As Broad Prize Finalist

The Texas Charter Exchange

Harmony Public Schools Selected As Broad Prize Finalist

TCSA is proud that Texas’ very own Harmony Public Schools is receiving national recognition for providing outstanding public education to students. Earlier this week, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools announced Harmony Public Schools as a finalist for the 2017 Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools. In addition to Harmony, DSST Public Schools in Denver, and Success Academy Charter Schools in New York were also named as 2017 Broad Prize Finalists.

The winner of the 2017 Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools will receive $250,000 and will be announced at the National Charter School Conference in Washington, D.C. on June 12. The winner is selected for demonstrating outstanding academic outcomes, especially among low-income students and students of color.

Harmony Public Schools is the second-largest charter management organization in the country, currently serving about 32,000 K-12 students in a system of 48 college-preparatory STEM campuses throughout the state. This includes locations in Austin, Beaumont, Brownsville, Bryan-College Station, Dallas-Ft. Worth, El Paso, Houston, Laredo, Lubbock, Odessa, San Antonio, and Waco.

A 10-member review board of national education experts reviewed publicly available student performance and college-readiness data for 39 of the country’s largest public CMOs and found that Harmony, DSST, and Success had the best overall academic performance, college readiness and progress closing achievement gaps. The review board considered student outcomes, college readiness indicators, scalability, size, poverty, and demographics.

Previous Texas winners of the Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools include IDEA Public Schools in 2016, KIPP Schools in 2014, and YES Prep Public Schools in 2012.

2019 Policy Priorities

The map below demonstrates the number of charter school students waitlisted for charter schools as of Fall 2018. Only students with a primary status of Waitlisted are displayed. In order to protect the identity of students, dots reflect a minimum of five nearby data points.